Arrogance
by Lake Desire
Summary: This is the first piece of fanfiction that I dared post. I wrote it for my English class to share what Everworld was about. They enjoyed it, and I hope you will too. This is Senna's reason for bringing her companions to Everworld.


I wrote this in my sophomore year as part of an assignment for my English class. I'd written fanfiction in junior high, but not much more than a few dry, cliché Animorphs pieces that even I knew better than to share. When I was assigned to read a book (not a problem, since there seems to be a magnetic attraction between my nose and fiction) and present something that would give my peers an understanding of what I'd read. Rather than taking the easy route, I sat down and wrote my first decent fanfiction. I felt it was only mediocre, but several of my classmates approached me after class saying how much they enjoyed it. A few weeks later, I ventured onto FFN, discovered a small handful found my amateur writing enjoyable, and delved into a new obsession. 

----- 

I came to live with my father when I was a little girl. He had a daughter named April O'Brien. Her firey red hair and large green eyes caught my attention right off. My first night with the O'Brien family was spent in April's room where she attempted, pitifully, to welcome and comfort me. 

I grew to loathe April. 

I was never close to her family. My stepmother, Mrs. O'Brien, always resented me because my mother seduced her husband. To Mr. O'Brien, I was an everyday reminder of his painful mistake, his affair with Mother. Especially the brat, April, hated me became she was jealous that she was no longer Daddy's only little girl. 

But that isn't what really set me apart from that family. For as long as I can remember, I've had certain radiance, or glow. A force of illuminating magic that I've only seen in my mother. It was faint. I only could dip into the surface of a great power seeping through the fabrics of the universe from another world into mine. 

With this power, my power, I could manipulate people. As a little girl, I could will a person to scratch his ear or cough. With practice, I could shift my awareness into another's mind, being able to influence them to say and do whatever I pleased. Weak-minded people were the easiest victims, oblivious to my presence. But even wiser souls could be persuaded, all I needed to do was find that person's weakness and use that to control them. 

It was a wonderful feeling being able to manipulate and control people. 

I was unhappy living with the boring O'Brien family, especially little miss perfect April. She loved over shadowing me. April was always the one her teachers loved, getting the lead role in the school play, and surrounded by friends who simply adored her. Her charade was not one pleasant to watch. I took great pleasure in causing her distress of any kind. 

Mrs. O'Brien wasn't much better. Although April would tell her teenybopper brigade that her Mommy treated her stepdaughter as well as her own child, I knew better. Five years ago, while I was in the midst of puberty, Mrs. O'Brien pulled me aside. She explained I would begin to have sexual feeling, but I shouldn't act on these impulses. After all, she believed promiscuity was inheritable, the whore who seduced her husband. Her dear little April would never disgrace her foolish religion by being attracted to a man. 

As I became a teenager, I became more aware that my time with April O'Brien's family was going to end soon. I always knew my place wasn't in this world, but I began to sense someone, something, watching me. When the time was right, he would come for me and pluck me away from the place I grew up. 

It scared me. 

I knew I was going to end up in another world, the parallel universe my real mother had fled to long ago. This place would be danger, so I wanted protection. I searched my high school for the perfect bodyguards that would come running at my beckon. 

When I was a junior, I knew my time had come. It was time to crossover to the other world, the parallel universe that was the origin of my power. 

I stood on the shores of Lake Michigan. Closing my eyes, I silently willed each of my chosen guardians. Of course they didn't know it was me silently willing them, but the four named Christopher, David, Jalil, and of course, April all felt drawn to the shores of lake one Saturday morning. 

I crumpled to the ground, exhausted. Using my power was tiring. I took a deep breath, then looked up to see Jalil getting out of his car, April sitting on a bench, David jogging towards her, and Christopher standing watching me from a hundred yards off. They'd come, unknowingly, at my beckon. 

The first was Christopher Hitchcock. Arrogant, sexist, and raciest Christopher who could also be witty, clever, and compassionate. At first I believed he was weak, suffering the addiction of alcohol. I dated Christopher for a while, but found he was stronger than I thought. Despite my ability to tempt him into doing my bidding with alcohol and if I had to, sex, he was on to me. He suspected the manipulation, all but knew it was I pulling his strings. 

I ended my relationship with Christopher when David Levin moved into town. David was more the kind of guy I required. He was eager to prove himself a man in an attempt to make up for the shame of being raped. Yes, raped. Because of his paranoidia, David was pathetically easy to control, and useful to me because he was a leader. He could handle the pressure of making decisions that could cost someone his life. The others would follow him. 

I was drawn to Jalil by his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Logical Jalil obsessively repeated simple actions seven times. By entering his mind, I could intensify his urges by multiplying them seven times over. Oh, yes, little Jalil, how does it feel? Scrub your hands, your dirty, dirty hands, down to the bone. Forty-nine, 343, 2401. How does it feel, to be so filthy? 

Perhaps it was foolish of me to bring April along, but I thought it would do little-miss-perfect some good to step outside of her sheltered little world. And April could keep the boys under control. Why am I always treated like the selfish bitch? Am I the only one who could see I was destined for greater things that living the life of a social butterfly, the suburban dream? 

So there we were, the five of us. The others looked reluctant to be here, but were compelled and curious about what was drawing them towards me. 

"What does it mean, David?" I heard April ask. I watched David shake his head in confusion. 

Dread began to bubble from my inside. It was happening, but I wasn't exactly sure what. All I knew is my time in this world was almost up. 

"What is this?" Christopher asked me. This wasn't right. I rose to my feet and looked at them, as confused as Christopher. 

"No!" I mouthed silently as the universe ripped apart. 

It started as a fade. Everything around me turned gray, except for the others. My eyes locked on David, then I turned and gasped as I saw the water at the lake grow choppy, swelling higher and higher until a giant wolf's head rose out of the water. 

I've come for you, Senna, I heard inside my head. 

So you're the one that I have been waiting for? The massive creature leapt upon me, snatching me away from this world and taking me to another. 

He was taking me to Everworld. 


End file.
